I was in Barcelona recently and saw their "white bicycles" in use.. very cool idea and lots of people using them, the rack systems where you rent/drop off the bike have a neat little locking mechanism and keypad input to type in/swipe your rental card. During the night a maintenance van comes round and checks up on them, lets hope this one works.

I was in Barcelona recently and saw their "white bicycles" in use.. very cool idea and lots of people using them, the rack systems where you rent/drop off the bike have a neat little locking mechanism and keypad input to type in/swipe your rental card. During the night a maintenance van comes round and checks up on them, lets hope this one works.

from what i remember reading there was a number of reasons almost uniquely inherent to the netherlands, that led to the failure of that scheme. not that there's not problems everywhere whenever a change of infrastructure happens..
for a recent example of a another hugely sucessful project, google the "velib" scheme in paris, which seems to be running very smoothly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9lib'
berlin also has some kind of automated rental system.
it's a cool idea, but personally, i love having my own kickass bike, even if i have to use a lock

I was in Barcelona recently and saw their "white bicycles" in use.. very cool idea and lots of people using them, the rack systems where you rent/drop off the bike have a neat little locking mechanism and keypad input to type in/swipe your rental card. During the night a maintenance van comes round and checks up on them, lets hope this one works.

mvisbeek_ The Netherlands attempt is what inspired this. Never claimed it was an original idea. The thing with competitions is I like to begin with what I would like to end up with. My end goal was to have a rendering of a cool bike, so I backpedaled (pun!) an idea that would leave me with that. I approach every competition with the primary goal being what I want to round out my portfolio.

Kinl_ I was not aware of the bikes in Barcelona. I think there are several ways a community could make it work, though most would be complicated and costly.

The other solution I thought of would be a bike so light and so foldable that it slips into a messenger bag... like a Jetson's car.... bit I'd need a lot more than an hour to work on that, not that great bike designers haven't been tackling it for decades.

I think RBaid has it right on the money. An easy to access cable lock that's only there when you need it. Doesn't require you to buy a new specific bike, etc. That's a very now solution.
I also like the net solution. That would be such a pain to try to cut through. As long as the closure is extremely secure then I think that's also a very viable idea. You'd just need a good way of carrying a cable net since I'd imagine it would be kind of stiff and thus, bulky.
Also this solution is good since people don't always try to steal the whole bike. They'll take anything on a quick release just because they can so something that just wraps up the whole bike is a nice idea.

having some knowledge about how easy and quick it is to cut a cable lock with a decent pair of bolt cutters, i'm immediately skeptical of most designs that rely on cables for security. but i do appreciate the entries that try to make up for this shortcoming such as warrior24seven's audio alarm and jesse daniel's ink spraying lock. i can also imagine the compo-net being frustrating to thieves depending on its construction. it could become a tangled mess of sharp wires once enough spots are cut.

I was in Barcelona recently and saw their "white bicycles" in use.. very cool idea and lots of people using them, the rack systems where you rent/drop off the bike have a neat little locking mechanism and keypad input to type in/swipe your rental card. During the night a maintenance van comes round and checks up on them, lets hope this one works.

from what i remember reading there was a number of reasons almost uniquely inherent to the netherlands, that led to the failure of that scheme. not that there's not problems everywhere whenever a change of infrastructure happens..
for a recent example of a another hugely sucessful project, google the "velib" scheme in paris, which seems to be running very smoothly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9lib'
berlin also has some kind of automated rental system.
it's a cool idea, but personally, i love having my own kickass bike, even if i have to use a lock

copenhagen and a few other cities in denmark have a similar concept and it works really well. it helps that already a big majority of the population bikes to work and in town, plus denmark is very flat. there are a number of bike stands in the city, and you put in a 20 kr coin to rent the bike and get the money back when you return it. just like a shopping cart at a grocery store. the bike are simple, fixed gear bikes, but also have racks for your stuff. i have no idea if they are even stolen, but i dont imagine it. there are much better bikes around to steal.

also, every bike sold in denmark come equipped with a lock. its a small pin that engages at the back tire through the spokes and is attached to the frame. it basically just makes it impossible to move the back tire. most often, these locks are the only thing used, (no locking to a post), and while there is theft, its amazing how much the socially conscious aspect of the society alone just seems to keep theft at bay.

yeah they did something very similar to this in copenhagen recently too. at first all the bikes got stolen and stripped but after a while no one bothered cause they were worthless and the market was flooded so no one bothered stealing them anymore. im pretty sure the public bike share is still in place there.

zippyflounder wrote:Nobody ever considers accidentle activation, bystanders getting sprayed, or a easy deafeat by putting a plastic baggy over the lock...jeeze people user your F'ING heads for a change.

Smell would combat the simple plastic bag trick. Retail stores don't seem to worry about the accidental activation when they put ink tags on expensive clothing... Jeez Zippy, maybe you could have entered the competition? Used your head that way?

zippyflounder wrote:Nobody ever considers accidentle activation, bystanders getting sprayed, or a easy deafeat by putting a plastic baggy over the lock...jeeze people user your F'ING heads for a change.

Smell would combat the simple plastic bag trick. Retail stores don't seem to worry about the accidental activation when they put ink tags on expensive clothing... Jeez Zippy, maybe you could have entered the competition? Used your head that way?

maybe its just me, but ill take a bad or not so good idea over no ideas any day.

zippyflounder wrote:Nobody ever considers accidentle activation, bystanders getting sprayed, or a easy deafeat by putting a plastic baggy over the lock...jeeze people user your F'ING heads for a change.

Smell would combat the simple plastic bag trick. Retail stores don't seem to worry about the accidental activation when they put ink tags on expensive clothing... Jeez Zippy, maybe you could have entered the competition? Used your head that way?

maybe its just me, but ill take a bad or not so good idea over no ideas any day.

R

i think the ink one should win, just to spite this guy and his negative comments